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"Son of a BLEEP!" thundered my editor as he stormed into my
cubicle. "I need that article yesterday!" My story was three
weeks overdue, and now we had less than one week to build the next Monster-Mod
in time for publication. And I hadn't even ordered the parts.

With success comes pressure. My first Monster-Mod apparently was popular. So
they had contracted my next two projects. The problem: I tend to move slowly
when building a mod. This doesn't sit well with publication schedules.

Remember that the gaming system we built had a heat-intense Pentium 4 CPU. We
spent a lot of time tweaking the setup to maximize cooling while minimizing fan
noise. In this article, we'll take the mod one step further. This mod will
show you how to build a water-cooled system on a budget. But simple
water-cooling is not enough to make it a Monster-Mod. In this case, we're
going to have to go extreme.

These are the design goals of our water-cooled PC:

High quality. This doesn't mean buying the most expensive
parts. It does mean you have to pay for quality parts where they count the most.
By overbuilding our system, we can help ensure that the mod will be stable under
stress.

Esthetically pleasing. Water-cooled systems are
beautifulfreakishly beautiful. Imagine a mod where you hang the water
reservoir from a hospital I.V. pole. Then dye the water blood red and make it
look like your computer is a living organism.

Quiet. This is a Monster-Mod, so we have to reduce the noise using
bizarre and interesting methods.

Heat Dissipation

The Pentium 4 processor throws off heat faster than my editor's forehead
at deadline. But what's an acceptable temperature? If you let your CPU run
over 70 degrees centigrade, you have an increased risk of permanent damage. At
the very least, your system will become unstable. If your system freezes during
a game clan match, you're going to be unpopular.

Even with our Jet blower fan, the CPU can get quite hot during 3D gaming. To
cool it requires turning the fan to maximum speed, which makes the noise of a
tiny jet engine. And its cooling ability is still limited by the relatively poor
heat-transfer capacity of air. Our atmosphere has limited molecular density for
conducting heat. What we need is water, and plenty of it.